


Watch Us Fly as Loud as We Can

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, First Thanksgiving, mostly this fic is about stuffing waffles, written in a tryptophan stupor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 19:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16750207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: Karen and Frank’s first Thanksgiving.“Figure maybe it’s not too late to start some new traditions.”





	Watch Us Fly as Loud as We Can

_A/N: I slept most of the day after hosting Thanksgiving and spent my weekend in a tryptophan stupor. This fluff little thing also happened, apparently. As always, I’m incredibly thankful for the people and the joy that fandom has brought into my life._

_p.s. this is post-Daredevil season 3, though I truly have no idea what that timeline is in relation to Punisher, and I’m slightly annoyed the creative powers that be couldn’t even be bothered to clarify it._

_Title from “[Life](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWgmtmIiomI)” by The Avett Brothers._

**Watch Us Fly as Loud as We Can**

People who don’t know them might be surprised that, of the two, it’s Frank who’s the sentimental one. Karen has to admit she saw it coming.

She volunteers to man the office phones on Thanksgiving, not only because it gives her the perfect excuse to flake out on Foggy’s offer to join him and Marci at his family’s big dinner, but also because it helps her push Matt into accepting Sister Maggie’s offer to eat with her and some of the boys from the orphanage. The plan backfires a little, though, when barely anyone calls and she spends the day remembering Frank’s face when she told him she wouldn’t be celebrating.

“We never really did anything with it, in my family,” she told him, surprised by the disappointment he’d tried and failed to mask. “My dad always kept the restaurant open so we could get the trucker traffic, so we’d just work and eat there, like usual. Thursday special was turkey and stuffing, anyway.”

Frank had just nodded then, mentioning that he and Curtis had an invite to the Liebermans for dinner. He said he was still considering it. She wondered if he had meant to ask her.

It’s been fits and starts with them for a while now. She won’t see him for three weeks, then he’ll show up with Chinese food and camp out on her couch for a night or two. He gets a new burner phone every week or so, but always makes sure she has the number. He went from skittish to touch her to almost unable to keep his hands off her after she broke the ice and kissed him one night.

 _She hadn’t meant to do it. But he brought up that day in the hotel, and she just couldn’t help herself. They’d never spoken of it, the moment they shared in that harshly-lit elevator, and all he had to say was_ “I wanted–” _before she was pressing her lips to his, making up for every moment she’s spent the last month or so regretting._

Now, they make plans, and half the time those plans end with them making out on her couch. She’s trying really hard not to look too closely at any of it – which is why she forced herself to be a little surprised when he seemed invested in her holiday schedule.

“You should go to the Liebermans,” she had offered weakly. “Might be nice.”

He just nodded tersely and didn’t say anything more about it after that. Karen remembers he only kissed her that night on his way out the door.

She calls in a Thai order on her way home from the office, but ends up wandering a little, lost in her own head. When she finally reaches her door, she mistakes the delivery driver – hooded sweatshirt pulled up to the brim of his baseball cap – for Frank, and feels her heart take a telling stutter when she realizes her error.

She ends up putting most of the pad see ew in the fridge for tomorrow and lies awake for a few hours wondering just how many more chances she’s allowed to miss.

Her answer seems to come the very next day, in the form of Frank on her doorstep, loaded down with bags of food. She does a double take to make sure it’s really him – she’s spent most of the morning elbows deep in the dark web, chasing a lead from Foggy in order to keep herself distracted – but she can’t stifle a ravenous smile when he asks if she’s hungry.

“Sarah sent me home with enough leftovers to feed a whole platoon.” He’s already grinning at her response, and the twinge in her heart feels like a jolt of caffeine, a flash of sunlight on the otherwise grey day. Karen holds the door open for him, still a little dazed at the idea of conjuring him up on her stoop – the things she could do if only missing him counted for a superpower.

“You don’t have a waffle iron, do you?” he asks as he heads for the kitchen. It’s not lost on her that he knows exactly where to find the things he’s looking for.

“No,” she stammers. She doesn’t tell him she can’t remember the last time she ate a proper breakfast, let alone cooked one. “No, sorry.”

“My girl, Lisa, she always begged for stuffing waffles on the day after Thanksgiving. Went through a couple years, she wouldn’t even eat the proper dinner, just wanted me to make her waffles.”

“Stuffing waffles?”

“Oh yeah, it’s a family secret,” Frank says, with a grin her way that practically turns her insides to melted butter. “Gets the stuffing and potatoes all nice and crispy, then you pour the turkey and gravy on top.”

“Sounds great.” Karen still finds herself frozen a little, every time he shares something personal -- and so casually. Sometimes she flashes all the way back to that hospital room, to piano bench forts and gingersnap-powered spaceships.

He tells her so many things now. He tells her about his wife, about his children, and she holds his hand and listens. He tells her how Maria was furious with him for a full week when he let Lisa stay up and watch Jurassic Park on cable. He tells her how terrified he was to give his son his name, how important that legacy had seemed at the time. He tells her, and it seems like the stories are putting him back together, instead of tearing him apart.

He tells her, and sometimes she tells him too, about the things she’s tried to forget.

“Pancakes’ll do, though,” Frank mumbles, almost to himself, unloading the bags onto her kitchen counter and setting a frying pan on the stovetop. “Figure maybe it’s not too late to start new traditions.”

He turns to look at her then, and it all lands on her like a pile of bricks. He knows what he’s said, and so does she. And Karen’s knocked sideways by how much she wants that – to have traditions with him. She wants years with him, memories, an after for them both. It doesn’t seem as unthinkable as maybe it should.

Ultimately, she simply answers his unanswered question, rounding the island to press a whisper against his lips. “No, it isn’t.”

His hands span her hips when he reaches out for her, and something startling and permanent flares in the back of his eyes. He wants her like she wants him, she’s certain of that. He might even need her in the same desperate way. But they’re not saying it out loud. Not just yet.

The stuffing pancakes are delicious, Karen’s pretty sure of it. She loves watching him cook, loves the practiced way he moves in the kitchen, and she always loves the things he makes for her. But it’s hard to pay attention to any of her senses with this moment hovering around them. It feels like they’re sprinting towards the edge of a cliff, and she’s not sure whether or not she’s supposed to jump. He puts a hand on her thigh when they finish their meal, setting back from the table, and she goes a little lightheaded.

“Thanks for cooking,” she says, breaking the peaceful silence after a long moment. “Best Thanksgiving I ever had.”

It’s the truth and Frank seems to know it, leaning in to kiss her, soft and sweet. The hand on her thigh flexes when their lips touch, and her cheeks go pink with anticipation. When Frank insists on washing up as well -- sloshing dishwater down his front almost immediately -- it’s pretty much all she can take.

“Here, umm,” Karen stammers, wide-eyed at his surprised smile, “I think I have an extra shirt of yours somewhere.”

She’s lying, but only a little. She knows for certain that there’s two of his t-shirts in the second drawer down on her dresser – just to the left of her gun locker – bundled up next to one of his hoodies and a pair of coveralls he’d worn on an undercover job. She knows exactly where the shirts are, and exactly how many nights she’s had to talk herself out of slipping one of them on.

Frank follows her into her bedroom, already pulling his dampened tee over his head, and Karen’s breath catches at the sight of him, scarred and chiseled, like a statue still standing after a hurricane. She’s so preoccupied, in fact, that she doesn’t notice his own distraction – the still-open dresser drawer.

“Here,” she offers again, holding out his shirt but averting her eyes for some reason.

“You’ve got a drawer for me?” Frank’s voice is small and soft, and Karen realizes, not for the first time, that none of this has happened like she thought it would. She didn’t realize she had given him a drawer. She hadn’t even understood, until just now, how deeply she had let him become entrenched in her life. She was in the middle before she even knew she had begun.

“Just a few of your things I kept forgetting to give back.”  She tries to sound casual, aware that it’s a miserable failure. Maybe it’s time to just give in. “And maybe a couple things I didn’t want to.”

He takes a deep breath in and huffs it out through his nose. Then he fixes her with an unwavering look that steals the air right out of her lungs. “Baby, you’ve taken better care of me than anyone I’ve ever known.”

Karen squeezes her eyes tight against the tears that are threatening to spill and purses her lips to try and hold in the words that are ready to be said. It’s an entirely overwhelming moment, and when he cups one of her cheeks in his hand, she knows she’s done for. “Ah, dammit. Frank–”

“Yeah?”

“If I tell you that I love you, is it gonna be alright?”

He makes a sound that might be a sob or a laugh, or some combination of the two, and then he’s wrapped around her.

“Yeah,” he whispers into her hair. “Yeah, sweetheart, it’s gonna be alright. God, I’ve loved you for so long–”

He cuts himself off, kissing her desperately, and she knows he’ll taste the salt off her cheeks, so she holds on as tight as she can to try and tell him it’s okay.

“Frank, I love you.” She gasps the words again when they pause for a breath, giddy with the liberating way it sounds off her tongue. He says it back. And then he tells her even more.

“I ain't got much left that’s mine. Ain’t got much left to give.” His hands are around her waist, at the nape of her neck. His lips glance off of hers between words. He’s everywhere around her, he’s everything she wants.

“But whatever you need, Karen,” he gasps, “whatever you need, it’s yours. Take it, take it, take it–”

Frank's the sentimental one. Karen's always known it. And this year, it’s what she’s most thankful for.


End file.
